This is a blog about the small town of Tucker, Georgia, which is located just outside the major metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. On March 13, 2013, the residents of Tucker learned that a small group of politically motivated individuals who lived nearby wanted to incorporate using Tucker's commercial areas and leaving many of the long-time residents on the outskirts of the new city. This is the story of how the residents have fought back to preserve history and their own community.

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Tucker Township? A Vision or a Pipe Dream?

Who drew this map? We are not really sure. We stumbled upon it recently while looking for Tucker election results. We do, however, think this map, called "Tucker Township" actually shows a good compromise between Tucker and Lavista
Hills that could have worked well for everyone. It offers a great way to
share the Northlake area commercial tax revenue. So, why didn't anyone
suggest something like this prior to putting forth competing bills in
the 2013 and 2014 legislative sessions? And, why is Tucker's city still
being allowed to move forward when it has been called
"unconstitutional" by even the legislators who supported it?

Limited services government in the form of a new city is something that the Georgia constitution does not allow, apparently. But, unless citizens decide to fight the creation of Tucker or Peachtree Corners, two of such limited cities are going to continue operating until someone tells them that they cannot.

Save Tucker! (This group) asked legislators to please consider township legislation because we did not believe that a new city was going to be something Tucker residents wanted or could afford. We emailed and called legislators and met with many of them at the Gold Dome, but our efforts were largely overlooked as the bills brought before the House and the Senate were moved along in unison with the bill for a Lakeside City, City of Briarcliff and others.

The Brookhaven Post has reported that many of the problems that were identified in the battle over Northlake between the community of Tucker and the would-be city of Lakside (or Lavista Hills) have now been "fixed" in new legislation this session. From the Post:

"The Post Reports – Senate Bill 375,
a bi-partisan Bill designed to clarify and codify the process of
creating new cities in Georgia, has passed the State Senate. The Bill
provides for a two-year legislative process, meaning, legislation to
create a new city can be introduced in either the first or second year
of a legislator’s term, but it can only be voted on the year after it is
introduced.

A financial viability, fiscal impact and service delivery study must
be prepared by a public academic research institution, such as the Carl
Vinson Institute, based on the proposed boundaries. This study must be
prepared between the first and the second legislative session."

And, in case you want to see a better picture of how the various areas voted to form cities in Lavista Hills and Tucker, here is a map we made based on the elections data. We approximated the area that was proposed for annexation into Chamblee with the black line down Briarlake Road. But, we have now read that the annexation is off the table for now. Good decisions by Chamblee officials to wait for more data.

Let's just hope that Tucker's new government isn't in the business of helping Lavista Hills TOO much. If city taxes on top of CID taxes create an environment prohibitive to new business development, we could very easily be forcing a lot of business over to the Oak Grove and surrounding Toco Hills commercial areas, while we watch Tucker's great commercial areas lose even more business than we have already since all this in-fighting first started.

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Newly elected Tucker Mayor Frank Auman (center) and four council-members were
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When met with objections, they promptly began holding meetings anyway. And they hired staff members, specifically lawyers, more specifically lawyers who are experts in election laws and understanding the charter.

The seats for District 2 were decided in a runoff election March
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IMPORTANT RUNOFF ELECTIONTUESDAY, JULY 26! DEKALB COUNTY'S DISTRICT 4 CHOOSES BETWEEN INCUMBENT BARNES-SUTTON OR CHALLENGER BRADSHAW!

If you DID NOT vote in the last election, do not despair, you can STILL VOTE in the July 26 Runoff so long as you were registered to vote at the time of the first election. To have a say in this runoff, you will need to ask for a "Democratic ballot" for you to cast your vote on.

From the desk of the group "Unhappy Taxpayers and Voters," we received the following:

To DeKalb Teachers and Georgia Teachers:

Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton (of the 4th District in DeKalb County) has a long history of arriving to work late (Commission meetings and/or committee meetings) and/or not showing up at all. We ask that you review the following records (prior performance and work history/records of arriving to work on time and/or showing up) and ask if teachers that are not elected officials could get away with the same violations: